‘Guardians of the Galaxy’and ‘Ant-Man!

We're just over a month away from the release of 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' the highly-anticipated intergalactic superhero film from Marvel, but there's already talk of possible sequels from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. The executive also has some hints about 'Ant-Man,' which recently picked up director Peyton Reed and writer Adam McKay.

Feige spoke at the CineEurope convention (via Total Film) over the weekend on the status of Marvel's upcoming films, saying that they'll begin casting for 'Doctor Strange' in the next month or two -- and while he couldn't offer much on 'Doctor Strange,' he was able to speak about the possibility of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' sequels. Yes, plural.

There are dozens and dozens of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' storylines. There's a group that came about in the '60s, were revamped again in the '80s and they changed into this incarnation that you see in this movie about eight or nine years ago. So there are a lot of other characters and worlds and stories. So should this film work, should the audience come out for this one, there are definitely places we can take it and we have ideas of where we'd like to go with it.

There's no guarantee, and basically it's up to you guys to get out there and support 'Guardians' if you want to see more from that corner of the Marvel universe. That's a no-brainer.

Feige also had this to offer about Thanos, the villain from 'Guardians' who will also figure into other films:

We learn a little bit more about him in this movie, and he -- and his band of followers -- is the biggest piece of connective tissue that will eventually lead us back into Avengers films in the future.

He does say 'Avengers' films in the plural sense, which indicates that we could be getting even more sequels down the line, although director Joss Whedon's involvement past 'Age of Ultron' is unknown.

As for 'Ant-Man,' Feige's comments are pretty intriguing regarding Paul Rudd's superhero character and his integration into the Marvel movie universe:

'Ant-Man' is a very important character for us. We like that people don't necessarily know what it is. We like that it sounds sort of strange when you first hear the notion of Ant-Man, or a hero that can shrink, but he's a very key Marvel character. He's a key Avenger. He's an important character we want to bring into our universe and Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and an amazing cast all set to start in August, we believe that we're on the road to the best version of 'Ant-Man' that we could have.

This suggests we'll be seeing Rudd's Ant-Man teaming up with the Avengers in the future, and possibly appearing in other Marvel films, which is pretty exciting news.